Gloucester Cathedral (Part One)

Text and Photos from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia,

unless otherwise accredited.

Gloucester Cathedral Tower, at Sunset

Picture taken from Gloucester Cathedral Web-Site at

http://www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk/

(Photos of Gloucester Cathedral are taken by 

Angelo Hornak, Richard Cann, Chris Smith, 

Esther Platten, Gloucester Cathedral and Gilmere Ltd)

Gloucester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the North of the city near the river. It originated in 678 A.D. or 679 A.D. with the foundation of an Abbey dedicated to Saint Peter (dissolved by King Henry VIII).

The foundations of the present Church were laid by Abbot Serlo (1072–1104). Walter Gloucester (died 1412), the Abbey's historian, became its first mitred Abbot in 1381. Until 1541, Gloucester lay in the See of Worcester, but a separate See was then constituted, with John Wakeman, last Abbot of Tewkesbury, as its first Bishop. The diocese covers the greater part of Gloucestershire, with small parts of Herefordshire and Wiltshire. The Cathedral has a stained glass window containing the earliest images of golf. This dates from 1350, over 300 years earlier than the earliest image of golf from Scotland. There is also a carved image of people playing a ball game, believed by some to be one of the earliest images of mediaeval football.

Construction and architecture

The Cathedral, built as the Abbey Church, consists of a Norman nucleus (Walter de Lacy is buried there), with additions in every style of Gothic architecture. It is 420 feet (130 m) long, and 144 feet (44 m) wide, with a fine central tower (15th-Century) rising to a height of 225 ft (69 m) and topped by four delicate pinnacles, a famous landmark. The nave is Norman, with an Early English roof; the crypt, under the choir, aisles and chapels, is Norman, as is the chapter house. The crypt is one of the four apsidal cathedral crypts in England, the others being at Worcester, Winchester and Canterbury.

Front view of Gloucester Cathedral

(Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity)

Foundation work began on the Church in 1089. 

Picture from Wikimedia Commons

Author: Saffron Blaze

The South Porch is in the Perpendicular Style, with a fan-vaulted roof, as also is the North Transept, the South Transept being Transitional Decorated Gothic. The Choir has Perpendicular tracery over Norman work, with an apsidal chapel on each side: the Choir Vaulting is particularly rich. The Late-Decorated East window is partly filled with surviving mediaeval stained glass. Between the apsidal chapels, is a cross Lady Chapel, and North of the nave are the cloisters, the carrels, or stalls, for the monks' study and writing, lying to the South. The cloisters at Gloucester are the earliest surviving fan vaults, having been designed between 1351 and 1377 by Thomas de Cambridge.

The most notable monument is the canopied shrine of King Edward II of England, who was murdered at nearby Berkeley Castle. The building and sanctuary were enriched by the visits of pilgrims to this shrine. In a side-chapel is a monument in coloured bog oak of Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror and a great benefactor of the Abbey, who is interred there. Monuments of Bishop Warburton and Dr Edward Jenner are also worthy of note.

Between 1873 and 1890, and in 1897, the Cathedral was extensively restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

Misericords

The Cathedral has forty-six 14th-Century misericords and twelve 19th-Century replacements by George Gilbert Scott. Both types have a wide range of subject matter: mythology, everyday occurrences, religious symbolism and folklore.

Gloucester Cathedral (South Cloister)

These cloisters, with fan vaulted roof, were used extensively 

in the Harry Potter film series 

Author of this Photo is William Avery

Picture taken May 2007

The Three Choirs Festival

An annual music festival, the Three Choirs Festival, is hosted, in rotation,  in this Cathedral and those of Worcester and Hereford. The Three Choirs Festival is the oldest annual music festival in the world. More information on the Festival can be found at Three Choirs Festival.

PART TWO FOLLOWS